Hezbollah Cleric Warns France to Stay Out of Lebanon’s War
The spiritual leader of pro-Iranian militants warned today that French intervention in Lebanon’s war would be disastrous, but people in both sectors of divided Beirut gave a French naval buildup a guarded welcome.
“To intervene with one Lebanese party against another will lead to disastrous results,” said Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual mentor of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group.
“France is trying to give moral support to a Lebanese party,” Fadlallah told the Visnews television news agency, referring to Christian army chief Michel Aoun, who is battling Syrian troops and their Lebanese militia allies.
A French aircraft carrier, a frigate and a hospital ship sailed Saturday for the Lebanese coast to join three French navy ships. France, the former colonial power in Lebanon, says it will give humanitarian aid and evacuate French citizens if necessary.
A pro-Iranian group holding two American hostages threatened Sunday to harm them if the French stepped into the 14-year-old Lebanese war.
Residents of the Christian enclave said the French decision to dispatch its fleet showed that the world had not forgotten them.
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